


Twenty Random Facts about Bruce and Kal

by swingandswirl



Category: DC Animated Universe, DCU
Genre: Angst, Fluff, M/M, Random Fact Fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-15
Updated: 2017-05-15
Packaged: 2018-11-01 00:39:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10910754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/swingandswirl/pseuds/swingandswirl
Summary: What the title says. Twenty random facts each about Bruce, Kal, and their relationship.





	1. Bruce

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the 2007 DC Random Facts Fic Fest and reposted here.

** 20 Random Things About Bruce Wayne **

  1. When Bruce was a child, he had a copy of the Grey Ghost comic book shipped to him every month. He still does.



  1. Bruce would never tell Kal, but it was only after seeing the other man in the abomination Kal calls a uniform that he'd *actually* had the courage to go out on the streets dressed up as a bat. He figured it couldn't be worse than blue-and-red spandex...



  1. For all Bruce has the most sophisticated computer on the planet (the AI in the Fortress technically does not count) he still uses an old-fashioned paper notebook for his personal journal. There's something about the feel of pen on paper that relaxes him more than even a hot bath or a massage.



  1. The moment Bruce looked Dick in the eye that night at Haly's circus, he knew he had gained a partner. It wasn't long before he realised that he'd actually gained much, much more.



  1. Bruce envies Dick his carefree joy sometimes. Especially when Clark comes to the cave, and he watches Dick hug the man Bruce loves, freely and without hesitation. He feels like a planet orbiting two stars, small and cold next to their pulsing heat. He watches from the shadows as they fly through the Cave, laughing, each giving him light. Each giving him life.



  1. Bruce knows Brucie is a facade, but that doesn't stop him from enjoying the many beautiful women- and men- that he comes across. Sometimes, he forgets he's only *acting* the part of the playboy, and that scares him as much as the idea of losing to the Bat does.



  1. Bruce goes to his parents' graves every so often, just to talk. He's Bruce here, not Brucie or the Big Bad Batman, just Bruce who's having problems getting the calibrations right on his latest invention, who's just had a fight with his son, who's planning to marry his wonderful boyfriend as soon as he can work up the nerve to ask. He's not sure if the Waynes can hear him when he speaks to them, but if they can, he hopes they're proud of him.



  1. Every year, Bruce tries to give Alfred a raise, and each year, Alfred politely but firmly refuses. It's become a game now, but Bruce knows the truth- he could beggar himself five times over, and still not be able to pay Alfred a fraction of what he deserves for all he's done for them.



****

  1. Jason's case is no longer in the Batcave. Instead, two simple plaques on the wall by the computer commemorate Batman's partners... and a series of teen crisis centres named for each of them honour Bruce's children. He likes to think that this does their memories better justice. ****



  1. It is a Kryptonian custom that every couple have a small chest in which they store the possessions most precious to them. Bruce's half of the El chest contains, among other things, a stethoscope, a single pearl, and a certain lead box given to him years ago.



  1. They've been to over a hundred countries together, and Bruce has married Kal in every single one of them. They may not be legal, but for Bruce, they're as special as the Bonding he shared with Kal at the Fortress or the small ceremony at the Smallville town chapel where he married Clark.



  1. Bruce really doesn't like black all that much- it reminds him of *that* night, of his mother's dress and his father's tux, of black-tie parties with bad food and worse company, of spending too much time with people whom he likes too little. His favourite colour is blue, dark blue- it reminds him of the midnight sky over Wayne Manor, of the sea crashing on the waves below, of Kal's eyes in the throes of passion. It's a colour that he doesn't get to see nearly often enough.



  1. When Kon first entered their lives, Bruce was *terrified*. He was sure he'd mess up, sure he'd fail Kon like he'd failed his other children. It takes years of Kal's loving, and many reassurances from the rest of the family, before Bruce is convinced he won't. Years later, as he watches his son marry the woman of his dreams, he reckons he hasn't done half bad for a paranoid, brooding rich kid with issues.  



  1. Bruce loves swinging through the city on his decel lines. It's as much the danger of falling as the thrill of sailing through the air that draws him to this, makes him like it better even than flying with Kal. He knows his lover will never drop him, and he loves him for it, but he can't help wanting to fly without a safety net.



  1. Bruce doesn't dare tell Alfred, but he thinks Martha's lemon bars are even better than Alfred's. He's pretty sure that Martha knows this, too, because she always includes a box in the care packages she sends him and Clark. ****



  1. Bruce has an intricate tattoo of a bat on his lower back. He blames it on the foolishness of youth and one too many shots of tequila, but he's oddly loathe to erase it. The fact that Clark is *very* interested in tracing the tattoo, both with fingers and tongue, has nothing to do with it, of course...



  1. Bruce hasn't drunk alcohol since he became Batman. The only exceptions he's ever made are a single glass of champagne at his wedding and the birth or adoption of each of his children... and an entire bottle of scotch the day after Kal's death.



  1. Bruce's favourite subject is poetry. So much of his work deals with things that have to be looked at logically, analysed, thought through, dissected. So he enjoys losing himself in something that just *is*. He'd never tell anyone, but behind the first-edition volumes of Byron, Wordsworth and Neruda, there's a well-thumbed pile of Dr. Suess.



  1. Bruce has never been more grateful for his gauntlets than when he starts wearing his wedding ring. The feel of the cool metal against his skin grounds him, gives him the strength to get through the long, hard nights of patrol when he feels like a goldfish swimming upstream in the Amazon. Granted, the ring garners him some odd looks on the rare occasion he has to take his gauntlets off, but that's a price he's more than willing to pay.



  1. For Bruce's eighteenth birthday, he has a giant, 2000-person blowout at the Ritz in Paris- three days of drink, drugs and general debauchery. For his forty-eighth, nine people gather around a fireplace, toasting s'mores, drinking hot chocolate, and telling family stories all night.



         There's no question in his mind which is the better birthday.


	2. Kal

**Twenty Random Things about Kal-El**

 

  1. He has a collection of random alien-themed knickknacks he's built up over the years, ever since he found out about his heritage. Some are cute, some are scary, some are just plain weird, but his favourite are the matching little green Batman and Superman ones Wally gave him last Christmas.



 

  1. When Kal finds out that the astronomers have found out the remains of Krypton, he almost leaves before Bruce convinces him that's what the Green Lantern Corps is there for. And later, after Kyle returns with images of a vast, glowing green wasteland and Bruce simply holds Kal in his grief, without question or recrimination, he realizes he wouldn't give up this man for all the inhabitants of Krypton. ****



  1. Kal gets annoyed, sometimes, when people are so taken with his physical prowess that they forget he has an incredibly sharp mind. Still, it's fun to see people's expressions when he and Bruce walk into the a room discussing the latest theories in advanced quantum mechanics as easily as next week's MD roster. ****



  1. Kal's always wanted to be open about his marriage, even as Superman. However, when he envisions coming out, it's at a press conference or something, not being kissed senseless by his husband in the middle of a battlefield in front of thirty million people. Looks like returning from the dead has its benefits after all.



 

  1. Kal's half of the El chest contains the key to his spaceship, the blanket his Ma and Pa first wrapped him in, and a glass jar containing the remains of what was once a rose.



 

  1. Kal still has no idea how he became the bad cop in this relationship. Granted, Bruce melts like chocolate on a hot day when any of their kids flashes him a smile and a pleading look, but still. There's something very weird about being scarier than Batman.



 

  1. Kal is careful to ration the amount of sunlight he absorbs. Too much, and he'll either collapse into himself, or explode, taking a good chunk of the planet with him. He only hopes he can last long enough to outlive Bruce before the inevitable happens.



 

  1. Kal has forbidden the AI from telling Bruce, but the other man's Kryptonian accent is *terrible*. It's not his fault, human vocal chords simply aren't build for the kinds of complex trills and tonal nuances Kryptonese requires. Besides, Kal thinks as Bruce sinks to his knees before him, he can think of *far* better uses for that mouth.



 

  1. Kal wonders, sometimes, what his life would have been like if Krypton had never exploded- but only for a second, until he remembers his family, and he thanks every deity he's ever known or met that things turned out the way they have.



 

  1. Despite the fact that, between Hiram Clark's legacy and Jor-El's playing of the stock market, Kal need never work a day in his life, he still loves his job at the Daily Planet. Part of it is the desire to make his own way, but it's mainly because being a reporter enables him to touch people's lives without the aid of superpowers or a fancy costume.



 

  1. Kal positively *hates* most Superman songs, but especially the ones by Eminem and Five for Fighting. The only reason he hasn't sicced Bruce's best lawyers on them is that the royalties help the Superman Foundation save far more lives every year than they would otherwise.



 

  1. Kal wonders why every two-bit villain who gets his grubby hands on a chunk of Kryptonite heads straight for him. Only this time, the villain in question is Bruce, and the Amber Kryptonite he accidentally exposes Kal to doesn't hurt him, just makes him blind stinking drunk. Kal wakes the next morning with a horrible hangover and only vague flashes of yellow tutus, toilet-seat garlands, and dancing karaoke bears.



         Bruce is banished to the sofa for a week.

 

  1. For years, Kal's greatest fear has been that he will die alone. Now, lying beaten and bruised in the arms of a woman he's honoured to call sister, his love with him in spirit if not body, Kal is at peace. He hates knowing that Bruce and their children will live on without him, but it's a sacrifice he makes gladly, one he would make again. The final shudders begin to consume him, and he focuses on the man who has given him the strength to make it this far.



          Kal dies with a smile in his eyes and Bruce's name on his lips.  

 

  1. Kal has never told Bruce, but it was only the sight of *another* person crazy enough to put on a costume and fight crime that kept him going on as Superman. Without Bruce's presence, if not always his friendship, Kal would have hung up the boots a long time ago.



 

  1. Kal knows it's petty, but he can't help but smirk at the shell-shocked expressions on the faces of his Daily Planet colleagues when he introduces them to his husband. Honestly, he's been dating one of the world's most famous men for over two years, would it be asking too much of a roomful of crack investigative reporters to figure it out?



 

  1. Kal spends about an hour a day teaching Kon to read. He spots Cass skulking around outside the room one afternoon and invites her in. Soon, he has two students, one of whom he needs to teach almost from scratch, but he doesn't mind. It's what fathers are for.



 

  1. Despite years of trying on Kal's part, Martha and Jonathan Kent still insist on living on the Kent farm rather than with him and Bruce. He tries to visit at least every other weekend, often loaded with souvenirs from his travels and letters from his family. His parents were in their late thirties when they found him, and intellectually he gets that they'll age like anyone else, but it's harder than a battle with Metallo, to see how old and frail his parents are, how thin his father has grown since the heart attacks, how gingerly his mother moves. But he pastes a smile on his face, and warmth in his voice, and chatters merrily on about Kara's latest school project and Kon's most recent training goof-up, because it's better than facing the fact that someday soon, he won't have this any more.



 

  1. In Kal's study at the Fortress, there's a special shelf for all the awards he's received over the years. Clark's three Pulitzers are here, as is the Nobel Prize Superman shared with the Wayne Foundation last year. Pride of place, though, goes to Kal's favourite, a wonky, slightly discoloured red heart with the words "#1 Dad" on it in orange. 



 

  1. Kal hasn't told anyone, but he once accidentally skewered a cow with his heat vision when he was twelve. He hasn't been able to touch meat since.



 

  1. Kal is fluent in three hundred and forty-seven languages. He plans to spend the rest of his life telling Bruce how much he loves him in every single one of them.



**Author's Note:**

> You'll note that I use Kal, rather than Clark, throughout these two fics. This was a very deliberate choice - I believe that Superman has a third identity, one that isn't quite Clark and isn't quite Superman, and so in my verse this truest self goes by Kal. Someday I'll write an extended meta on identity, assimilation, and erasure, especially as it related to immigrants, as Kal-El of Krypton is, but for now, here are some snippets.
> 
> Kudos and comments are, as always, appreciated.


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